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It’s hard to believe “Black Panther” is only the third film Ryan Coogler has ever directed. The 31-year-old wunderkind is on the brink of becoming a bona fide A-lister, as “Black Panther” is poised to break box office records the world over. It wasn’t too long ago, however that Coogler was in film school at USC, making his first shorts and watching Andrea Arnold films.

After an early screening of “Black Panther” this week, Coogler took to the stage at Bam’s Harvey Theater in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn. As Coogler answered audience questions, he admitted he was slightly distracted by the sight of his “hero” Spike Lee, who was sitting in the front row. (Lee has lived and worked in Fort Greene for decades.)

When the question of his favorite films came up, Coogler was able to gush further about his hero. Unable to pick just one,

“It was one of the first films I watched where a woman had my complexion and my hair texture,” says Nyong’o. “That was deeply, deeply moving and influential.” Not only was Steven Spielberg’s “The Color Purple” empowering for Nyong’o but it also helped encourage her to follow her dreams into acting, “Possibilities are born when you see yourself reflected.”

Oscar-nominated director and writer for “Get Out” Jordan Peele named the 1989 film “Glory,” starring Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman. “All the performances were great it in,” says Peele. “But that was one where it felt like the black performers—even though they were the supporting characters in that movie and [were] looked at as supporting characters in the

A year ago Jordan Peele was best known for the sketch comedy series “Key and Peele,” but after the show ended he stepped behind the camera, writing, directing and producing the horror comedy “Get Out.” Now Peele has the chance to make history as the first black writer to win an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

Suzanne de Passe and Lonne Elder made history as the first black writers ever nominated for Oscars. De Passe was up for Best Original Screenplay for “Lady Sings the Blues” (1972), shared with Chris Clark and Terence McCloy. That same year Elder was nominated in Best Adapted Screenplay for “Sounder.” But neither won.

Wesley Snipes tried to make a Black Panther movie in the 90s and he's revealed the fascinating behind-the-scenes story of this superhero adventure that never came to be. Marvel's Black Panther has a ton of buzz going for it following the world premiere, and the character is set to be one of the company's biggest heroes following the release of the Ryan Coogler directed take on the world of Wakanda. However, Snipes, who would eventually star in the Blade movies, Marvel's first actual hits at the box office, tried to make a movie based on T'Challa more than 20 years ago.

Making the movie was a struggle, as Wesley Snipes tells it. At the time, it was hard to justify making a superhero movie about a character most people had never heard of. This was long before the McU and ages before Disney would purchase Marvel and make it one

In a year that has seen Hollywood plagued by controversy and scrutinized for both its hypocrisy and its attempts at progress, Tuesday's Oscar nominations came as a hopeful signifier of changes to come.

The nominations, which were announced live from the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills early Tuesday, revealed some serious milestones for the industry. Below, five ways that this year's nominations are making Hollywood history.

1. Greta Gerwig is the first woman to be nominated for the Best Director category in eight years, and the fifth overall. The Lady

The 2018 Academy Award nominees have been revealed, and we've already discovered which category is the one to watch at this year's Oscars: best director. While there are some very interesting nominees, including Meryl Streep's 21st nomination for her role in The Post, it's the best director category that has the most potential to make real waves in Hollywood. Here's the rundown: Guillermo del Toro is up for The Shape of Water, which has 13 total nominations this year. Christopher Nolan is up for his work on Dunkirk, while Paul Thomas Anderson was nominated for Phantom Thread. The two biggest names however, at least when it comes to the history books, are Greta Gerwig for Lady Bird and Jordan Peele for Get Out. Gerwig is only one of five women to ever be up for best director, and equally as surprising is the fact that Peele is only the fifth black

Taraji P. Henson is set to revisit a gruesome chapter in U.S. history. She’s signed on to star in and produce a drama about Emmett Till, a black 14-year-old who was tortured and lynched in Mississippi in 1955. The two white men who killed him were acquitted by an all-white jury.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Henson will play Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Modbley. She insisted that her son’s public funeral include an open casket to show how his body had been mutilated.

Every year, the studios take their best genre successes and try to push them beyond the technical ghetto. Oscar campaigners want to convince critics, guilds, and Oscar voters that their movie rises to the level of art. But it’s rare for fantasy, horror, thriller, action or comic-book movies to pass over to the Best Picture side.

When they do, it tends to be an exception like Peter Jackson’s fantasy trilogy “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy. All three films scored Best Picture nominations and technical wins: “Fellowship” scored 13 nominations and wins for Makeup, Visual Effects, and Cinematography; “The Two Towers” earned six and won Sound Editing and VFX; and then came the ultimate triumph for the finale “The Return of the King”: a grand sweep of all 11 nominations including Best Picture. But while “Lotr” fell into the fantasy genre, it was boosted by the literary pedigree of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Remember the guy that leaned out the window in Boyz N the Hood and used a shotgun to almost blow Ricky in half? He didn’t have a lot of screen time on the film but he did happen to take things too far when all was said and done. Of course what happened to him makes his own crimes seem pretty tame. Anyway, he was arrested and charged with a double homicide in 2005 and sentenced to life in prison. You would think that this would be where his story would end but then of course you would be wrong

A New York-based journalist is speaking out about a pair of incidents in which legendary politician Jesse Jackson and famed director John Singleton allegedly touched her without consent or made sexual comments.

Danielle Young, a writer and producer with The Root, opened up about the encounters in a personal essay on the website, titled, “Don’t Let the Smile Fool You. I’m Cringing on the Inside”. Young wrote that she met Jackson while working for an unidentified media company, noting that he met with staffers for photos after giving a speech in a company conference room.

“Gossip Girl” star Ed Westwick has been accused of rape by actress Kristina Cohen, who detailed the alleged encounter in a Facebook post published November 6. Cohen says the sexual assault occurred three years ago at Westwick’s apartment after they first met. The actress was dating a producer who happened to be one of Westwick’s friends.

Cohen says things became uncomfortable after Westwick suggested “we should all fuck.” Cohen explains that she asked her producer boyfriend to leave after Westwick’s sexual remark, but he did not want to make things awkward by heading out early. The producer reportedly told Cohen they would stay for another 20 minutes. The actress proceeded to take a nap in Westwick’s guest room, which is where the alleged rape occurred.

Students at the USC School of Cinematic Arts have launched a petition calling for Bryan Singer’s name to be removed from the Division of Cinema and Media Studies. The call for action comes amid the ongoing sexual-harassment scandal emanating out of Hollywood, with the petition calling it “completely unacceptable that this prestigious department within our school still carries the name of Bryan Singer, a man accused multiple times of sexual harassment, assault, and pedophilia.”

Singer, who transferred to the USC School of Cinematic Arts from the School of Visual Arts in New York, has directed such films as “The Usual Suspects,” “X-Men,” and “Valkyrie.” The university recently refused a donation from Harvey Weinstein following the many accusations of sexual misconduct that have been leveled against him.

Ben Affleck has told The Associated Press that he is “looking at [his] own behavior” in the wake of numerous sexual harassment scandals in Hollywood. The actor, who was in London promoting the upcoming superhero tentpole “Justice League,” also expressed that he wants to make sure he’s “part of the solution,” offering two pieces of advice for how sexual harassment can stop taking place in the industry: “More women need to be pushed to power,” Affleck said, and sexual harassment needs to also be viewed as a “men’s issue” where guys are willing to call out inappropriate behavior.

In the past week, two women have publicly accused Dustin Hoffman of sexual harassment, allegations which have renewed interest in Meryl Streep’s nearly-four-decade-old claim that her “Kramer vs. Kramer” co-star introduced himself by grabbing her breast. Slate tracked down a Time article from 1979 — the year the film came out — in which Streep recalls auditioning for a play Hoffman was directing. “He came up to me and said, ‘I’m Dustin — burp — Hoffman,’ and he put his hand on my breast,” the actress told Time. “What an obnoxious pig, I thought.”

Per Jeff Lenburg’s 2001 book “Dustin Hoffman: Hollywood’s Antihero,” the play was “All Over Town,” which debuted on Broadway in late 1974, when Streep was 25. Later that decade, the actors notoriously battled on Robert Benson’s “Kramer vs. Kramer” set, where they played divorcing parents.

Here are the biggest takeaways from Variety‘s Inclusion Summit, held on Wednesday at the Montage Beverly Hills.

1. Skepticism remains a major obstacle for women reporting sexual misconduct: Attorney and civil rights activist Anita Hill proved to be a timely keynote speaker at Variety‘s Inclusion Summit. Hill, who testified before an all-male Senate Judiciary Committee about her sexual harasser, then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, said female accusers face deep skepticism when speaking out. “One of the things that really is troubling to me,” Hill said, is that “it still takes about 30 women to come forward before one woman is believed. … Our word is as valuable as the word of our abusers.”

2. Diverse casting in films boosts box office performance: CAA agent Talitha Watkins presented data by the agency that analyzed the diversity of film casts since 2014 and compared those films’ weekend box office performances to that of non-diverse films. The data show

It would be lovely to think that last year’s “Moonlight” Oscar wins presaged a long and permanent shift in Hollywood movie culture. At the heart of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ complex diversity issue is how much the Oscars reflect the way that the Academy likes to view itself. That helps to explain why the Academy voters did far better with their 2017 Oscar nominations than the year before, when their 6,000 members failed to nominate any actors of color at all.

The Academy’s recent diversity push added more younger and international members; its 7,000 voters are now 28 percent women and 13 percent people of color. But will the new membership shifts make a major impact on the 2018 Oscar nominations? Despite the new voters, the organization is still under the

It would be lovely to think that last year’s “Moonlight” Oscar wins presaged a long and permanent shift in Hollywood movie culture. At the heart of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ complex diversity issue is how much the Oscars reflect the way that the Academy likes to view itself. That helps to explain why the Academy voters did far better with their 2017 Oscar nominations than the year before, when their 6,000 members failed to nominate any actors of color at all.

The Academy’s recent diversity push added more younger and international members; its 7,000 voters are now 28 percent women and 13 percent people of color. But will the new membership shifts make a major impact on the 2018 Oscar nominations? Despite the new voters, the organization is still under the

The Migos may join the list of hip-hop artists crossing over to the big screen. Related: Migos Removed From Delta Flight, Manager Claims Racial Profiling Eminem and “8 Mile”, 50 Cent and “Get Rich or Die Tryin'”, Ice Cube and “Boyz n the Hood” – these are just a handful of famous rappers who hustled from […]

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